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Show HN: Birth Control As A Service
- wehadfun 13y agoIs there anyway boyfriends can get access to this?
- jaldoretta 13y agoWe don't have that feature currently, but it's definitely a possibility!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jaldoretta 13y agoAh...thanks for pointing that out!
- tvirelli 13y agoYeah! Would be great if it synced so that I could get a "Go" or "No Go" signal!
- herbig 13y agoGo or no go where? Am I missing something?
- rkuykendall-com 13y agoThe app is designed to provide birth control by letting you know when have sex, or when to not have sex. He was asking for a companion app without all the management, just the current status.
- Kluny 13y agoHe's talking about sex!
- tvirelli 13y agoMaybe on the significant others device, it could have a sort of "defcon" system. To let me know that I should bring home chocolate and keep my opinions to myself!
- mkaziz 13y ago^that would be a dream come true.
- JetSpiegel 13y agoThe Bone-signal
- dbla 13y agoI'm a little bit confused. The title mentions birth control but the website is talking mostly about fertility. Is this a tool to help women get pregnant or prevent pregnancy?
- jaldoretta 13y agoIt's a tool that can be used for either one. It helps women detect the fertile time of their cycle (which is typically about 6-8 days), so it can be used for both pregnancy prevention and achievement.
- RobAley 13y agoBoth. It lets them know when they are likely to get pregnant, and when they're aren't. They can use that information to choose when to have unprotected sex (or protected) depending on what they want to happen.
- brown9-2 13y agoThis seems like a really bold claim to put on the back of a smartphone app.
- jaldoretta 13y agoSo our app doesn't actually do any sort of predictions at this point. We just give users the tools to practice a highly-effective and natural method, and they do whatever they see fit with their data.
- MaxGabriel 13y agoApparently both. On this page http://www.readytogroove.com/app/ http://www.readytogroove.com/app/, it explains how you can learn which days you are or are not fertile. Is this really a reliable birth control method though?
- jaldoretta 13y agoThere haven't been a ton of studies done, but the ones that have been carried out all show a perfect-use effectiveness of over 99%. But that definitely depends on how careful users are.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ntaso 13y agoKudos to you, it's alway great so see people talking about natural birth control methods without mentioning God or religion in the same sentence. It's virtually impossible to find good resources about the sympto-thermal method in English without landing on a very Christian-oriented website. But I'm wondering: What's the business model you have? I'm asking, because I'm in the same space. Mostly in Germany, but I also have an app for the English-speaking population: http://mynfp.net/ http://mynfp.net/ It costs 5.99$ and it's certainly nothing I can live from alone. However, the app is just an "appendix" to my SaaS business which is the same thing, but bigger and better, which generates revenue to be sunstainable in the long term.
- jaldoretta 13y agoThanks! It's awesome to hear from another person in this space. We're still working out our business model (right now we're planning a subscription-based app to practice FAM/NFP, but that could change). But we have plans to add more features and perhaps another product. Hardware may also be in our future =)
- ntaso 13y agoWell, good luck to you then :) There are a few more people in this space, especially in the app market. Recently, "Glow" was released, which is more aimed towards women who want to conceive, but they might go into the birth control segment. Although I think they will fail with their current product in this market. There's Clue (helloclue.com); Ovuline; TrueCycle (seems to be dead?); and all the gibberish period calendar apps.
- DanielStraight 13y agoI know several people who have used this book/site, and as far as I know, there are no religious connections: http://tcoyf.com/ http://tcoyf.com/
- jaldoretta 13y agoThat book is actually how I first learned, and it's an awesome read.
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- jaldoretta 13y agoSo when methods like the rhythm method are used, it's a pretty bad idea (because it predicts fertility). But the sympto-thermal method is based on scientifically-backed signs of fertility and allows women to pinpoint the fertile time instead of guessing. Here's a study about this particular method's effectiveness: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17314078 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17314078
- dsr_ 13y agoQ: What do you call a woman who depends on the rhythm method for birth control? A: A mother. As a tool to help you get pregnant, awesome, kudos, very well done. Promoting it for birth control? Not very clever. http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/birth-control-effectiveness-chart-22710.htm http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control...
- jaldoretta 13y agoIt's a common misconception that the method our app relies on is the same as the rhythm method, which it is NOT. The rhythm method predicts fertility based on cycle length, which is a really BAD idea. The sympto-thermal method pinpoints the fertile window using scientifically-backed signs of fertility. Planned Parenthood lists an effectiveness of 99.6% (see the "What is the Sympto-thermal Method" section: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/fertility-awareness-4217.htm http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control...
- dsr_ 13y agoI apologize for conflating the rhythm method and the sympto-thermal method. It's still a bad idea for most people. All from the same Planned Parenthood site: Twenty-four out of every 100 couples who use fertility awareness-based methods each year will have a pregnancy if they don't always use the method correctly or consistently. whereas: Vasectomy is the most effective birth control for men. It is nearly 100 percent effective. and Less than 1 out of 100 women will get pregnant each year if they use an IUD. --- I want to control my systems. I have many choices: Puppet, Chef, cfengine, writing my own system... you're offering me a system that requires maintenance every single day, I can't pay someone else to do it for me, and if I screw up, it's 76% likely that I won't have unintended consequences. But there are a bunch of other systems on the market where I configure them once and they work for years without attention, and even systems where I just have to be picky when I'm conducting operations, not every single day.
- wayward 13y agoThe 24% failure rate cited by Planned Parenthood includes ALL couples who claimed to be using fertility awareness, from those who had taken classes and were using a modern method, to those who were just guessing. IIRC, over 80% of the couples were not properly trained in a modern method of fertility awareness. Not surprisingly, they had very high pregnancy rates. Someone did the math (can't find the article) and figured untrained users had about a 28% pregnancy rate while trained users had a 7% pregnancy rate. (80 * .28 + 20 * .07) = 23.8 The 7% pregnancy rate is comparable to the real-world use of the Pill. As for your system analogy, if your automated system was a significant resource hog or ran the risk of corruption of data or crashing the system, would you use it? You focus on efficacy without factoring in side effects.
- jpollock 13y agoSeriously, rhythm method is not effective birth control (24% failure rate/year). Please don't rely on it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_methods#Comparison_table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_met...
- ntaso 13y agoThis is not the rhythm method. It's the sympto-thermal method and 99.4% effective
- jaldoretta 13y agoSee the "What is the Sympto-Thermal Method" section: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/fertility-awareness-4217.htm http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control... EDIT: posted the wrong link before...sorry =)
- akayp015 13y agoSympto-Thermal Method. Not rhythm.
- jaldoretta 13y agoFor everyone wondering about this method, it's called the sympto-thermal method and is not the same as the rhythm method. Planned Parenthood lists it as 99.6% effective with perfect use. See the "What is the Sympto-thermal Method" section in the link below: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/fertility-awareness-4217.htm http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control...
- rdudek 13y agoIt's pretty spot on. My wife did this so we could avoid pregnancy for first few years of our marriage, and once we decided to try for one, only took one month for her to get pregnant.
- jthacker 13y agoThe 99.6% effectiveness statistic comes from the planned parenthood website and I'm assuming they quoted it from this study since they do not cite their source http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/1310.short http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/1310.short 99.6% is the method-effectiveness (i.e. the efficacy if used properly) or 0.4 unintended pregnancies per 100 "women years" (13 cycles) Other interesting results from the study: - the method-effectiveness rate found for this method is comparable to oral contraceptive - 9.2% stopped using the method due to dissatisfaction - Couples that had intercourse during the fertile period had an increased pregnancy rate of 7.5% - This study was done in European countries and the pregnancy rate was lower than similar studies performed in developing countries
- servowire 13y agoAlbeit a great app, this method is less reliable than having proper birth control at hand. I see mentions of "But it's 1.8% failure rate!" - thing about Cumulative Probability is, that is a pretty high number of failure after about 10 years. After 10 years you have a Cumulative Probability: P(X = 1) of about 15% of getting pregnant. If you don't want to be a dad/mom - use a condom. Or go double dutch.
- ntaso 13y agoYour argument lacks on two levels: 1. The same logic must be applied to condoms. They have a failure rate of 0.6 - 12% per year, depending on the study. 2. You mix perfect-use with imperfect-use. Even sterilization doesn't have a 0% failure rate, because sometimes things don't work out properly. The perfect-use index of sterilization should be 100% safety, but in reality, it's 99.9% I think.
- burgeralarm 13y agoFortunately, probabilities for birth control methods aren't presented in this way. Generally, when an organization like Planned Parenthood says that the symptothermal method is 99.6% effective, what they really mean is: "Of 100 couples who use the symptothermal method correctly for one year, 0.4 (fewer than one) will have a pregnancy." (Source: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/fertility-awareness-4217.htm http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control...) So after about 100 years of using this method, you've got a .4% chance of becoming pregnant. Seems like decent odds to me.
- IanCal 13y ago> So after about 100 years of using this method, you've got a .4% chance of becoming pregnant. Seems like decent odds to me. No, after one year you've got a 0.4% chance of being pregnant. Assuming this stays steady over 100 years, you'd have a 33% chance of being pregnant (1 - (0.996 ^ 100)) Their maths for a 1.8% failure rate over 10 years is right, it's about 15%.
- akayp015 13y agoDefinitely use both. I feel like this app is supposed to replace the pill rather than all methods of birth control. Which I am completely behind since I would forget to take the pill every other day. Which is why I'm now pregnant. Not to mention the crazy hormones, weight gain, and general misery the pill brought on. Yeah, I'll be switching to this.
- burkesquires 13y agoThe app looks great. Does it work for the Creighton Model (http://www.creightonmodel.com http://www.creightonmodel.com) as well? Also, you may want to get added to this list: http://contraception.about.com/od/naturalmethods/tp/fertility_apps.htm http://contraception.about.com/od/naturalmethods/tp/fertilit...
- jaldoretta 13y agoI suppose you could technically use the Creighton Model with our app, though it's not the method we provide educational info for.
- kvnn 13y ago> Upgrade your account to practice natural and effective birth control, get pregnant easily, or take control of your reproductive health. "Get pregnant easily" is not something you should be advertising. There are tons of reasons why someone can have trouble getting pregnant that are completely external to your app. Just a heads up.
- jaldoretta 13y agoYes, very true. Perhaps the wording should be revisited. Thanks for the feedback!
- bsimpson 13y agoMisleading title. It's a fertility tracking app. There are dozens of those. When I see "{physical thing} as a service", I expect some sort of monthly fulfillment service, like Dollar Shave Club.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoAgreed on the title, there is an old joke, "Question: What do you call people who are using the rhythm method for birth control? Answer: Parents." As a fertility timer to help people maximize their chance of conception though I think it is probably a useful tool.
- ntaso 13y agoScroll all the way down in the comments here, that joke has been told before and downvoted for its unrelatedness. This app is based on the symptothermal method, not the rhythm method.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoFair enough. Various folks seem to put it slightly above the rhythm method in practice [an example [1]] and pretty much less effective than any mechanical system [2]. The original joke was a statement on the variability of trying to gauge the internal state of the system versus mechanically disarming the system. And in that analysis it still holds. Nothing is quite so impresses as a natural system that has evolved through selective pressure to be effective in so many adverse situations. [1] http://www.fertility.com.au/Docs/Contraception/Contraception%20Success%20Rates.pdf http://www.fertility.com.au/Docs/Contraception/Contraception... [2] http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/UnintendedPregnancy/PDF/Contraceptive_methods_508.pdf http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/UnintendedPregnancy/PD...
- ntaso 13y agoPlease check this long-term study: http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/1310.short http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/22/5/1310.short It's as effective as the pill. But you're right that it doesn't provide birth control during the fertile days. It depends on how you define birth control. Is it something that enables you to have sex during fertile days or is it something that enables you to know more about your fertility? So, seen in the first way, the sympto-thermal method is just a method for observing natural processes. Nothing that prevents pregnancy during the fertile window. If you want mechanical birth control, there are really only three reversible options: condoms, IUD, diaphragm. Everything else that's reliable is based on hormones. In that light, I think it's a good idea to use the sympto-thermal method to be at least 50% less dependant on other mechanical tools.
- upofadown 13y agoAfter having read the HN headline I had an impression of someone hiring someone else to carry a bucket of water around during dates...
- moeffju 13y agoThis doesn’t seem to be available in any of the worldwide stores except the US store. Is a worldwide release coming?